The over-the-counter and prescription vitamin and supplement industry produces and sells many nutritive supplements to consumers. Such products are not limited to those for human consumption but also extend to “multi-vitamin” products for ingestion by and the nutritional benefit of pets, livestock, poultry and other animals. Conventional so-called “multi-vitamins” often are not composed of vitamins only but include a combination of numerous vitamins, minerals, and other compounds having beneficial nutritional health effects. These minerals and other compounds are essential for good health, and dietary deficiencies of them may result in illness or death. In addition to dietary (or primary) deficiencies that occur when a human or other animal fails to obtain a sufficient amount of a nutrient through a normal healthy diet, the organism may also develop secondary nutrient deficiencies caused by disease, illness, or other factors impacting health and nutrition such as, for example, gastric bypass surgery, excessive consumption of nutrient poor foods, alcohol or smoking. To correct such nutrient deficiencies and to ensure the general intake of normal amounts of nutrients, health experts and physicians often recommend the administration of a “multi-vitamin” dietary supplement.
The micronutrients used to create each micronutrient formulation (s) can be and are herein defined as all vitamins, minerals, enzymes and coenzymes (i.e. CoQ10), essential fatty acids (EFA's) and their derivatives (i.e., EPA, DHA), nutraceutical compounds, phytochemicals, polyphenols (i.e., quercetin), amino acids (i.e., L-Carnitine), antioxidants, organosulfur compounds (i.e., alpha lipoic acid), and other natural components of food or food like substances (i.e., grape seeds).
Vitamins, minerals, and other nutritive compounds are absorbed at various absorption sites within a human or other animal's digestive tract, including the rectum, as well as through skin pores or directly into blood capillaries. Many vitamins and minerals are absorbed at sites located within the small intestine. The numbers of these sites for the absorption or uptake of each nutrient are, of course, limited.
There are four types of competition that can occur between micronutrients and which pertain to this invention.
Chemical competitions take place prior to consumption of micronutrients, during the time between manufacturing and ingestion or utilization of a nutritive formula or multi-vitamin. This occurs because the manufacturers combine competing nutrients into one nutritive formula or multi-vitamin, in combining the competing nutrients in the nutritive formula or multi-vitamin a chemical battle ensues within the nutritive formula or multi-vitamin itself, leaving the competing micronutrients unable to be absorbed and/or utilized.
Biochemical competitions happen after the person's body has ingested the micronutrients in the multi-vitamin, but before the micronutrients have been absorbed. This occurs when micronutrients compete for a common receptor site for absorption or transport pathways.
Physiological competitions occur after the vitamins have been absorbed and/or when micronutrients have been introduced directly into the bloodstream. This is when two competing micronutrients may cause decreased utilization of one or both, even after absorption has taken place.
Clinical competitions occur when the presence of one micronutrient masks the deficiency of another, making it very difficult to detect deficiency.
Research has proven that many nutrients “compete” with one another both by chemical competitions which occur within a micronutrient formula and by biochemical competitions at the absorption sites and/or transport pathways within an animal's digestive tract. Competing nutrients interfere with one another's absorption and/or utilization by the body. When a dietary supplement containing numerous nutrients are administered in a single dose, several of the supplement's nutrients interfere with each other's digestive absorption and/or its utilization potential either by chemically negating one or both of the competing nutrients before ingestion or introduction to the blood stream by any method, or by bio-chemically competing for absorption sites after ingestion, or by physiological competitions occurring within the blood stream. Thus, many of the nutrients in “multi-vitamin” dietary supplements are not absorbed during digestion because of the competing effects of their constituent parts and are excreted by the body thereby producing little or no beneficial health effects. In addition, many of the competitive nutrients in a nutritive formula delivered directly into the blood stream produce little or no beneficial health effects due to decreased utilization.
There is a flip side to competition and interference. Think of all the difficulties that micronutrient competition causes. Turn these competitions upside down, and a world of positive benefits appear. For every type of benefit negating competition, there can be an equal and opposite benefit enhancing synergy to which it relates.
The opposite of a chemical competition is a chemical synergy. Both take place in the multi-vitamin itself prior to ingesting. A chemical synergy would mean that when two micronutrients are put into the same multi-vitamin, they form an advantageous complex that can help to increase the absorption of either nutrient, or possibly both. Zinc and vitamin B2 (riboflavin) share such a relationship.
The opposite of a biochemical competition is a biochemical synergy. In this case, rather than fight for a receptor site or pathway, one micronutrient aids in the absorption of the second. An example of this is when vitamin D aids in the absorption of calcium.
The opposite of a physiological competition is a physiological synergy. Unlike its opposite competitive counterpart where two nutrients decreased each other's utilization, in physiological synergy, one nutrient will aid in the performance of a second nutrient. This takes place because the one nutrient needs to perform a specific function, in order for a second nutrient to do its job. For example, vitamin K needs to be available in the body when calcium arrives. It is essential in the formation of bone tissue.
The opposite of clinical competition is clinical synergy. Clinical synergy takes place when micronutrients have been found to work together to create an observable yet unexpected beneficial change in the body. These clinical synergies have been attributed to decreasing the chances of a disease. An example of this occurs when folic acid (B9), vitamin B12 and B6 are present together in adequate amounts and convert homocysteine into cysteine and methionine. This conversion lowers homocysteine which is known marker of coronary disease.
A need exists for methods and systems in which nutritional dietary supplements can be administered in a manner that maximizes the body's digestive absorption, utilization and beneficial use of micronutrients. A need also exists for dietary supplement systems and methods that allow a human or other animal's diet to be supplemented with various micronutrients administered at intervals of time so as to reduce competitive interference by some micronutrients with the body's digestive absorption of others and to increase synergy.